Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefā‘ilün fa‘ūlün mefā‘īlün fa‘ūlün (as given in the edition)
Ruḫ u ruḫsār u ebrū ḳadd-i ‘ar‘ar
Çerāġ u mescid ü miḥrāb u minber
In English
1. Cheek and face and brow and juniper-tall stature: lamp and mosque and mihrab and minbar.
Literary and Historical Commentary
This matla has no verb at all; its two lines consist of four nouns each, and the couplet rests entirely on the figure of "leff ü neşr" (folding and unfolding). The first line lists four beauties of the beloved, and the second gives their counterparts in the same order: the cheek is the lamp, for it shines; the face is the mosque, for it is a place of prostration; the brow is the mihrab, for it is arched; and the stature, tall as a juniper, is the minbar, for it rises high. When the reader sets the two lists one under the other and pairs them, the likenesses appear of themselves.
All the likenesses are chosen from the parts of a mosque; so the beloved's face and stature become a mosque with its lamp alight. Likening the brow to a mihrab is common in divan poetry, but this unbroken pairing, which turns a whole face and figure into the description of a single mosque, makes the couplet a small display of skill. Sâhib had used the same figure in the second couplet of ghazal 109. The couplet appears in only one of the three copies that give the matlas, T. 738.
Bibliography
- Meral Topal, Pîrî-zâde Mehmed Sâhib Hayatı, Edebî Kişiliği, Eserleri ve Divanı'nın Tenkitli Metni, MA thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2004, p. 230, matla 22 (Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 4b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014
Online sources
